Amazon Dash Button is a new concept released by Amazon to drive sales on fast-moving consumer goods like toilet paper or washing detergent.
These quick action order buttons are synced to your Amazon account and a particular product of your choice. You can then place the Dash Button in an optimal position for a quick reorder when the product runs out. Amazon will then package and send the product to your door with little more effort than a quick button press. Convenient right?
Stagnant sales
Although the palm-sized purchasing buttons were announced just after April Fools day last year they have only started to pick up sales traction now, well so Amazon says. Amazon hasn’t given any baseline statistics but has claimed a 70% increase over the last few months. Slice Intelligence, a market research firm have suggested that less than 50% of people that have bought a Dash Button have actually used it to make an order.
Scepticism aside, this is a great product for reasons other than improving direct product sales. It’s great because it helps Amazon better understand consumer buying patterns and refines their existing data set. In a world where big data rules this slight innovation can mean huge things for Amazon. Provided that customers use the product, the Dash Button will also be able to shed some light on consumers value hierarchy to determine if they value convenience over getting the product for the best price.
Warehousing benefits.
The Dash Button brings a logistical benefit to Amazons storage facilities. Information about the regular usage of a particular product improves the Just-in-Time management of the storage process, utilising warehouse capacity to it’s fullest capacity.
Amazon is leveraging product automation.
If Amazon can collect enough information from consumers, it can begin to completely automate the product fulfilment process. From the click of the Dash button to the machine automated packaging of your product delivered to your door, a process that in some cases won’t need to have human interaction at all.
Product usage trends
The use of the Dash button reduces external influences of the customers buying habits and makes their brand purchases more consistent. If Amazon removes temptations of price fluctuations, a huge contributor to brand switching in fast-moving consumer products, Amazon can better classify consumer buying habits and solidify consistent sales of a particular brand.
What does this mean for the future?
Do I think the Amazon Dash Button is going to be the future of online retail? No, I don’t, but it is a step in the right direction. Large companies like Amazon remain relevant because they keep testing the boundaries of the ecommerce realm. With their rapid innovation, they are slowly disrupting they way the consumer’s purchases products, leaving the stagnant companies in their wake.
